


First Steps First

by Meskeet



Series: time, passing (ellie/dina oneshots) [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Coda, F/F, Forgiveness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Not Beta Read, Post-Game(s), Reconciliation, Spoilers, and i have a lot of emotions, as happy as any naughty dog ending gets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24895765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meskeet/pseuds/Meskeet
Summary: Part 2 spoilers. Ellie, returning to Jackson for a third time.“I would’ve done anything for you,” Ellie says softly. “Everything to make you happy.”“Except stay,” Dina reminds her, gentle to almost the point of cruely.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: time, passing (ellie/dina oneshots) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815994
Comments: 12
Kudos: 342





	First Steps First

**Author's Note:**

> This weekend finishing up the game was a WILD ride. Although I love the game ending as is, I wasn't quite satisfied by leaving Ellie and Dina hanging. So here's a bit of a more hopeful resolution for our favorite ladies. It's been almost three years since I last wrote anything for TLOU and I didn't realize how ready I was to dive back into drabbling.
> 
> For Anna, whenever you finish the game. :)

There’s a moment after Maria lets her in and turns around to lead her towards the heavy dining room table when Ellie eyes the large window in the room and considers flipping open the latches and dropping out, crashing feet first into the thin layer of snow and running away.

It’s a pretty brief moment, all things considered, but it’s a consideration.

“I’m not going to tell you you’re right or you’re wrong for coming here,” Maria says, crossing her arms. There’s a scowl on her face, but Ellie isn’t sure it’s for her. “Tommy would tell you to get the hell out. If _I_ were her, I would too. But I figured that you would come and she’s going to see you and nothing anyone does will stop you from asking.”

Maria’s reasons wouldn’t be the same as Tommy’s, that went without saying. Maria’s mad she left. Tommy’ll be mad she came back.

“Does she know I’m - ” ( _herealivestillhers?)_ “-back?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the rumor reached her,” Maria says. “A group passing through here mentioned a tattooed woman was coming up from California. I haven’t talked to her about it.”

Ellie’s not sure what her face looks like, but Maria’s had a lifetime of reading Tommy and Joel. Whatever’s on Ellie’s face makes Maria reach out – not in a hug, like she would have a year ago – but to squeeze her arm gently.

“We can catch up later,” Maria says, and it sounds just shy of a threat. “She and JJ are upstairs.”

Ellie nods once. Stands, pushes up her chair with a slight squeak that makes Maria wince and the slight noises from upstairs they’ve both been ignoring pause momentarily.

“Thank you,” she says, quietly. “For everything.”

“You’re still family,” Maria replies. Ellie doesn’t know what exactly Maria’s referring to – Joel dying, Tommy and her separating, Ellie leaving and then trying to come back. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe it’s none.

The stairs creak a little below her weight. Unlike the farmhouse, the noise doesn’t ring and reverberate through the space – rather, it sounds more like the murmur of a familiar voice. The climb feels both the shortest and the longest it ever has, and Ellie’s not sure if she’s relieved or horrified when she reaches the guest room door.

She knocks, a timid rap. The hall itself is unlit, except by the pale lavender of the pre-dawn, bleaching the vibrant green of the hallway’s walls away.

Footsteps approach the door. They stop. Ellie waits. It’s all too easy to picture Dina in one of her soft button downs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and waiting to finish a yawn before cracking the door open. On JJ’s roughest nights, Ellie would often stay up, clutching him close to her chest. In the mornings, Dina would stumble from bed, and always pretend like she’d had the best sleep of her life.

“It’s me,” Ellie says when the door remains closed.

The door is yanked open.

Ellie drinks her in – hair knotted back, shirt slipping off one shoulder, traces of a black eye mostly faded away. There’s lines there that didn’t exist when Ellie left – or maybe she had simply stopped noticing. Dina’s face is blank, shuttered over so thoroughly that Ellie can’t read her expression. Ellie reaches out towards her, catches Dina’s eyes flicker to the missing fingers on her hand, and drops her hands.

“I – “ Ellie catches her fingers rubbing across the new clicker scar on her hand. “Sorry. I know it’s early.”

Dina still hasn’t moved. Instead, her eyes flicker over Ellie, as though she’s examining every inch and finding her wanting. It – it hurts, no matter how hard Ellie had tried to prepare herself for this. She’d _known_ , damn it, when she walked away that Dina meant what she said. She just had kept hoping, even when she walked through the empty house and found the shared memories left behind.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m back. And uh, ask if I could see JJ occasionally. And – shit.”

Dina still hasn’t said anything. She hasn’t even moved – just stared at Ellie like she’d become a statue.

“Fuck. You were right,” Ellie says. “And – I should’ve listened. I went after Abby for the wrong reasons and I’m _sorry._ Um, and I guess I’ll see you around?”

This is a mistake. Ellie takes a step back, turns to go downstairs and tell Maria… something.

“If I were in my right mind,” Dina begins, when Ellie takes a second step. Ellie freezes and doesn’t turn around, afraid that if she makes eye contact it’ll all be over. “I’d just let you leave. A few months ago, when Maria came to help me move out, I would’ve probably told you to get out. I _begged_ you, Ellie. If you’d come back right away, I would’ve taken you back straight away.”

Dina just sounds… tired. Like she isn’t sure which of the two she should be and she doesn’t have the energy to figure it out.

“I missed you, but I meant what I said,” Dina says quietly, as though she’s aware of the best way to take the pieces of Ellie that almost look human these days and shatter them with just a few words.

Ellie dares to turn around. “I missed you too,” she says. “And I wish-” but she stops. Because it doesn’t matter. And she doesn’t know what she wishes, because nothing she wants fits together in a way that makes sense. She wants to erase the last months of separation, but without Dina being a part of her personal war. Ellie wants to tell Dina what she’s done, to be forgiven, but… Ellie isn’t sure that leaving wasn’t the right thing to do after all.

“Yeah,” Dina says. “Me too.”

“I would’ve done anything for you,” Ellie says softly. “Everything to make you happy.”

“Except stay,” Dina reminds her, almost gentle to the point of cruelty. “Why are you here, Ellie?”

“Because-” _I love you. I wanted to apologize. I missed you and JJ and when I had Abby under the water and thought of Joel and how the last thing I told him was that maybe one day I could forgive him, I wondered if maybe one day you could forgive me._ “I made you a promise and because we’re – we were – family. And I don’t really know that I understood it until I was ready to come back.”

“That’s poetic of you,” there’s a hint of amusement in Dina’s voice, even as her face remains stern. “Ellie, I still love you – but an apology isn’t that simple.”

“I know,” Ellie whispers and almost jumps with surprise when Dina takes her hands. One finger runs over the knuckles where her fingers used to be. Ellie means it when she says she understands – Joel had protected her, had watched over her for years, had just asked for her to be happy – about the closest to an apology he’d ever be able to make – and Ellie still hadn’t been able to forgive him. She’s not sure entirely if she has, yes. And maybe that’s why this feels all too familiar – a mess of anger between them, too much shattered love and despair that can be fixed with just a few words. “I _know_ , Dina. But if you’re willing, I – just a chance. That’s what I’m asking for.”

“Did you even find her? I know you, Ellie – I can’t go on a crusade again with you, and it’ll never end. You’re – we’re too stubborn, and as much as I understand and love you, we can’t work. Not if you’re just waiting for Tommy to bring news in or if I hear rumors about the Fireflies or if Maria just asks you to go on one supply run for them or-”

“I did.” That is something she can answer, at least. “I found her and… I let her go. I spent so long just… being angry. Not just at her, but at Joel. And Marlene. Tommy. Myself. And just about everyone but you. But I freed her from a gang holding her hostage and made her fight me and – I _won._ But all I could think about was Joel telling me he wouldn’t change a single thing about what he’d done and that–” _that I couldn’t forgive him, not yet and maybe still haven’t –_ “that I couldn’t do the same. That if I killed Abby, maybe I was just proving her right over and over again when she killed Joel and that my life was only good for making a cure.”

Dina hasn’t dropped her hands away from Ellie, not yet, although she gives a slight squeeze when Ellie starts to ramble. “Are you happy?”

“I’m not hopeless anymore. I slept last night. More than the night before, which was better than the night before that. I’m… not hopeless, and I think that’s something, at least.”

Dina breathes out a ragged breath. Ellie isn’t aware she’s moved closer until Dina’s head tips down, rests on Ellie’s shoulder. Ellie hesitates, then slowly moves her hands up to rest on Dina’s lower back.

“I can’t do the past few months again,” Dina says, as though she’s feeling her way through the words, one by one. “I left because I would stare at our things or move a record you left out of the way or JJ would cry by the door to your study. I can’t go through this again – I _won’t._ If this is going to work, I need you to understand this. Do you?”

Ellie exhales, feeling the jagged edge of pain from Dina’s hip brushing against the still-healing wound from the tree branch. “I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to let me stay.”

“One day at a time,” Dina says. It – it sounds like a promise and a threat, all in one. It sounds like it takes just about everything for Dina to make the promise, and maybe it’s all Ellie can promise now as well.

But… maybe it’ll be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Want more? Had things you liked or things you didn't? Let me know in the comments!


End file.
